Once again I am reminded of the types of work NLP Therapists can do with people who are depressed. NLP has identified the key behaviours of “depressed” people, strategies which continue the depressed state, and which can be hard to break for some without assistance or insight. Through research, we know a great deal about what kind of outside assistance works with depression, and what kind of “assistance” does not work. We also know that 80% of individuals suffering major depression will “spontaneously” cease to be depressed in between 4-10 months (Yapko, 1992, p 16). People normally find their own way out of depression. This also means that if any type of “assistance” continues for ten months it will seem to have solved the problem in 80% of cases.
Genuinely successful strategies for assisting are those that can show benefits in the short term. Studies have shown that Therapy is vital in the journey to health after a person has been diagnosed with “depression”. Unmanaged prolonged stress is one of the instigators of a depressed state, and specific and insidious thinking and behaving patterns evolve from this which bind the person into the ‘depressed state’ from which they find it difficult to emerge. NLP goes as far as asking “how have you been able to stay in a depressed state for so long?” A therapist can identify some useful thinking and being strategies to lift the person from this unuseful state into a more resourceful one. Some of the Behaviours which keep someone in a depressed state:
- Playing negative internal dialogue (self talk) inside their head over and over in a loop.
- Playing negative internal movies showing disaster endings over and over in a loop. Imagining only the worse case scenario ending to actions or choices.
- Associate into Pain, Dissociate from Pleasure: Noticing only negative things around them, which confirm their fears and paranoia through a negative filter – and not noticing the good things that happen.
- Catastrophising small negative events into large insurmountable events. Chunking down in a negative spiral when problems arise.
- All or nothing thinking – where there is no grey or in between options.
- Psychomotor retardation (Yapko, 1992, p 94) refers to the slowing down of motor responses in the depressed person. The depressed person often ensures this slowing of motor responses by avoiding exercise. This sets in place a cycle where lack of exercise increases insomnia, which increases exhaustion which causes a further reduction in exercise. A physiology of looking down all the time and the body language of sadness, (head down, hunched over, closed chest and shallow breathing adds to this.
- Overgeneralisation of events and thinking – “everything happens to me, no-one loves me, everything is going wrong!” This is what we call a “permanent, pervasive explanatory style”
- Orientation Towards the Past – a depressed person is focussed on the past. They see the future in reference to the past.. “I was abused as a kid and it will affect me all my life.”
- Not at Cause (Lack of a sense of control) – Feel things are happening “to them” rather than taking control of their life and creating a future.
There are many NLP strategies which an NLP Practitioner can work with a client to turn their thinking and doing around towards a happier more useful state. More next month.
References : NLP And The Rediscovery Of Happiness : by Dr Richard Bolstad and Margot Hamblett. (NLP Professionals, NZ).
